Battery chargers are well known in the art as are numerous methods of indicating the operating status of the battery charger when it is connected to a battery for recharging. Such indicators typically range from a simple lamp or a colored spot associated with an on/off switch to built-in current and volt meters or displays with accompanying warning lamps to indicate fault conditions. Heretofore, simpler kinds of indicators have been limited in function. Similarly, indicating systems capable of providing many kinds of status information are usually prohibitively expensive in a low cost battery charging instrument. Thus the need exists for a readout or indicating system capable of multiple indications from the simplest possible structure in order to minimize costs providing this feature.